The second vice president of the Gambia Football Federation, GFF, Ebou Faye has called on Gambians not to raise their expectations so high as The Gambia prepare to take on Cameroon on home soil saying Gambians must not overrate the scorpions knowing that the country is just returning from a football hibernation.
Ebou also spoke of the reason why they have chosen to camp the team in Morocco while urging Gambians to remain loyal to the team when things don’t work for the team. He said: "This is the period that the fans turn against their own team.
“Cameroon is a big country so any achievement against them will be big but we have to be aware that we are building a team.
“In as much as we want to win, we must be cognizant that we are just returning from a football hibernation.
“To build a team takes a lot of time. To win is important but the fundamentals of good team that will be winning in the future is also very important,” Ebou said.
Ebou added that they are busy searching for players because they want a pool of quality players to choose from and one way to do that is to prove that The Gambia is no pushovers in football now but warned that Gambians must be overrate the team.
To him, the GFF is more interested in building a team. This according to Ebou does not mean that they will settle for mediocre performance.
He also revealed to Nna Gambia News the reasons why they chose Morocco for a training camp. He said one of the reasons is that they want the players to focus.
“When the team is camped here, there will be too much distractions.
“The best thing is to send them far where they will have no relative, friend or loved ones visiting.
“It is obvious that when we camp them here, we cannot stop people from visiting them and that could be distractive.
“We know that apart from the distractions, we will be able to get the high quality training facilities which will be helpful for the coach and the players,” he said.
The second vice president of the GFF also explained that the Morocco training camp is not yet confirmed even though he remains confident that in few days’ time everything will be confirmed..
“While in Morocco, the coach might have chance to play a test match. At this moment we are in talks with two nations but I cannot confirm to you which are these nations,” he said
Ebou Faye also clarified that the invitation issued to players is just one to tell the players that they are considered for the Gambia /Cameroon match because of their performance but the list will only be confirmed by next week because the coach has not made his conclusion on the players invited.
He however urged Gambians to be patient with them and promised that by next week the speculations about who is invited and which country The Gambia will play in their three day training camp will be known by everyone.
He concluded by painting the future of Gambian football as bright saying, The Gambia a lot of young players with Gambian blood and that they are doing everything possible to convince them to consider coming to don the shirt bearing the national colours of The Gambia rather than wait for a chance that will never come from their adopted countries.
The Gambia is preparing to take on Cameroon in the 2017 AFCON qualifiers where the Gambia is laying joint second with South Africa behind Cameroon.